Kenny Baker (English actor)
British actor and musician (1934–2016)
Kenneth George Baker (24 August 1934 – 13 August 2016) was a British actor, comedian and musician. He portrayed the character R2-D2 in the Star Wars franchise and also appeared in The Elephant Man, Time Bandits, Willow, Flash Gordon, Amadeus and Labyrinth.
Early life
Baker was born and educated in Birmingham, West Midlands, and at a boarding school in Kent. He was the son of Ethel (1906–1990), a pianist and dress maker, and Harold Baker (1908–1949), an artist, musician and draughtsman. He went to live with his father, stepmother, and half-sister in Hastings, Sussex.
Due to his dwarfism, Baker stood 3 ft 8 in (1.12 m) as an adult. Both his parents were of average height.
Career
Beginnings
In 1951, Baker was approached on the street by a woman who invited him to join John Lester's theatrical troupe of little people. This was his first taste of show business. Later, he joined a circus for a brief time, learned to ice skate and appeared in many ice shows.
The public source identifies “Kenny Baker (English actor)” as british actor and musician (1934–2016). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kenny, Baker and English.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q454081. VIAF identifies the subject as 31603371. The Library of Congress control number is no97051930. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1934, 2016, 1906 and 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kenny Baker (English actor)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.